“If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”(Mark 5:28)

In the fifth chapter of Mark’s gospel we are presented with two stories about healing. We can learn a lot from them about calling on Jesus today to heal, so in this post I am writing about the first story, in which a woman suffering from a discharge of blood is healed, and in my next post about the second one, in which a young girl is raised back to life.

I begin by acknowledging that some people think such healings can’t happen anymore; that they occurred only while Jesus walked this earth. However, I disagree with this conclusion. Because Jesus was resurrected from the dead by his Father, he was set free, forever, from the limits of time and space. He can be anywhere at any point in time — and in all places at once. Furthermore, Scripture tells us he is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). So, the conclusion I’ve reached is that Jesus can just as readily heal today as he healed while walking this earth.

I turn now to the story about the woman who was suffering from a hemorrhage. Her attempt to approach Jesus ismade difficult by the fact that he is surrounded by a very

James Tissot, The Healing of the woman subject to bleeding; Date: 1886-96, Watercolor

large crowd – and they are pressing in from all sides. She concludes that if she can just get close enough to touch the hem of his garmet she will be healed and when she does so she is healed instantly. Jesus realizes at once that something miraculous has occurred, because Mark tells us that he is “immediately aware that power has gone forth from him” (5:30).

This power that went forth from Jesus isn’t just any kind of power, though. In Greek, the word is δυναμιν (dunamin) from which we get the English word, dynamite. So, we are given the impression that his power is explosive. but it isn’t something he suddenly acquires. This kind of power is an essential element of his character and being, coming directly from his heavenly Father. And such power, along with innate authority, combine to make all things, whether living or non-living, subject to him.

In the previous chapter Jesus exercised his power by calming a storm that arose over the Sea of Galilee (4:35-41). This wasn’t some cloudburst; it was a furious squall, the kind which can come up suddenly and be quite dangerous. His disciples, who were in a boat with Jesus, feared for their lives and petitioned him to do something about it. Mark writes that Jesus stood up and, “…rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’” As I envision this moment, it has a kind of Charlton Heston quality about it.

However, a better translation from the Greek would be, “Jesus said to the wind, “Settle down” and to the waves, “Hush.” To this fierce storm, in which the disciples feared they were going to drown, Jesus speaks to the wind and the waves as a parent would to a child who is being fussy. No yelling or theatrics. He calmly commanded the elements to behave. So we learn that even over nature, Jesus has inherent power and authority.

Furthermore, in the story which precedes the one about a woman with the discharge of blood, a man with an evil spirit approaches Jesus (5:1ff). This spirit refers to Jesus as the “Son of the Most High God” (v.8) and Jesus commands it to come out of the man. As it does, it goes into a herd of pigs, which rush down an embankment and are drowned in the water, below. As these stories are presented, one after another in Mark’s gospel, we begin to see that Jesus’ authority is boundless, for over evil spirits, as well as all of nature, he exercises power.

As for the woman with the discharge of blood, the only thing we are told about what motivated her to seek healing from Jesus is simply that she “heard about him.” We are offered no other explanation than that. Whatever she was told about Jesus was enough for her to think that he had the power to heal her – and that she need only touch his garment. The evangelist, Mark, also adds that she had sought remedy for her illness from many physicians over the years and spent all that she had, but instead of making her better, she only grew worse.

Next we are told that “she came up behind Jesus in the crowd and touched his garment” and that “immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.” (5:27-29) One might think, from the way this encounter is translated in most Bibles, that this woman merely ran her fingers across the hem of Jesus’ garment. “Touch” seems like such a genteel word. However, the Greek word actually means “to connect, to bind, to apply oneself to something.” The visual image should be that of a woman grabbing a hold of Jesus’ garment with great determination. This was someone who was not going to be deterred from the healing she so desperately sought from the One she knew could heal her.

When he discovers that it was this woman who had grabbed a hold of his garment, Jesus says to her, “Your faith has healed you.” Her faith – that Jesus could and would heal her – manifested itself as humble determination to receive healing from him. She serves as a model for those of us today who are in need of healing: Jesus can and he is willing, so we shouldn’t let anything (or anyone) deter us from seeking it from him.

Next time: What we learn about healing from the story of the dead girl raised back to life.

5 Responses to Healing Prayer (fifth installment)

Yes, there are those who, for various stated reasons, do not think God heals today, or that the powerful gifts of the Holy Spirit are needed today. It is obvious, though, from reading the gospels and seeing that our part in God’s kingdom now is to further it, and that furthering of HIs kingdom on earth has always happened and only can happen through the power of the Holy Spirit and the gifts He gives to God’s children (and by God’s children I mean those to whom He has given the right to become the children of God – See John 1). Yes, God’s power is not only available today, but is necessary today for His kingdom to be furthered on earth as it is in heaven.

Determination to be healed – something one needs in any day and age, but especially now with such unbelief around, to be healed. This is one of those issues about which one cannot “sit on the fence”, but must make a decision and hold onto it in firm conviction that Jesus’ power to heal is not only available but is willing given to those who call on Jesus’ Name for healing. This is something we have learned and are learning by experience.

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Quotable Corner

"Non-discipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees every thing in the light of God's overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10). The cross-shaped yoke of Christ is, after all, an instrument of liberation and power to those who live in it with him and learn the meekness and lowliness of heart that brings rest to the soul." Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines, p. 263

"After a man is saved, God will continue His training efforts. 'Putting on Christ' and Christ 'being formed in us' and having 'the mind of Christ' certainly do not mean simply reading what Christ said and attempting to put it into practice. Rather they mean that a real Person, not something remote and abstruse, comes to you day after day and 'interfering with you very self' shapes you into a being with a life similar to God's own. The command to the Christian to be perfect is no hyperbole but precisely what Christ meant. He begins on earth a process that will be consummated in heaven, but it is a process and will not allow you successfully to play the hypocrite with your naked self. God will not allow you to take the attitude, 'I never expected to be a saint, I only wanted to be a decent ordinary Chap.' His plan is indeed to make you into a heavenly being. This may account for the rough time Christians go through, for He is turning every one of his children into 'a little Christ.' He is not like a trainer who teaches a horse to jump better; He is in the business of turning horses into winged creatures." Clyde Kilby, The Christian Word of C. S. Lewis, pp. 181-182.

"Wounded healers must forsake the prideful tendency to be defined only in terms of strengths and wholeness. They must will authenticity, especially where they're still weak and tempted. That liberates the witness of God's incredible sufficiency and makes real that sufficiency through others who mediate Christ's grace and truth." Andrew Comiskey, Pursuing Sexual Wholeness, p, 191

"The historical roots of the theory of evolution are quite complex. But apart from a newly awakened fascination with the "laws of history" (Herder, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche) there was, no doubt, another ingredient: the Industrial Revolution with its concept of advance by improved workability. The idea that in the vast factory of nature things which do not work well are discarded for things which work better arises out of the mood of the nineteenth century. The entire universe was made to fit the drab climate of Manchester. While the pic of Genesis, with its powerful poetic form, was rejected as "anthropomorphic," an evolutionist concept of how things came about is tinged with the ephemeral of the laboratory and the market place." Karl Stern, The Flight from Woman. p. 291

"When people are so self-convinced that the world needs their accomplishments more than their sanctity and prayer-depth, they never do face squarely the overwhelming figure of Christ and his message in life and word." Thomas Dubay, S. M., The Evidential Power of Beauty, p. 301

"Ministries which attack only the surface of sin and fail to ground spiritual growth in the believer's union with Christ produce either self-righteousness or despair, and both of these conditions are inimical to spiritual life." Richard F. Lovelace in "Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal"

"Every Christian experience is an experience of faith; that is, it is an experience of what we have not...We are not saved by the love we exercise, but by the love we trust." P. T. Forsyth in "Christian Perfection"

"The heart has reasons which reason knows nothing of." Blaise Pascal

"To believe in [Jesus Christ] and not to believe in what He believed, not to love what He loved and not to desire what He desired, is not to believe in Him." Alexander Schmemann in "Of Water & the Spirit"

"Because victory is his, therefore it is ours. If only we will not try to gain the victory but simply to maintain it, then we shall see the enemy utterly routed. We must not ask the Lord to enable US to overcome the enemy, nor even look to HIM to overcome, but praise him because he has already done so; he IS victor. It is all a matter of faith in him. If we believe the Lord, we shall not pray so much but rather we shall praise him more. The simpler and clearer our faith in him, the less we shall pray in such situations and the more we shall praise." Watchman Nee in "Sit, Walk, Stand."